This invention relates generally to social networking systems, and in particular to presenting interactions with content items in a social networking system in real time.
Social networking systems allow users to connect and interact with each other, and allow users to add and interact with content items stored by the social networking system. For example, users can interact with content on a social networking system by expressing approval of the content (e.g., “liking” the content item), adding additional content to the content item (e.g., posting a “comment” on the content item), and sharing the content item with other users of the social networking system.
Interactions with content items are often presented so that users can see how other users have interacted with the content. Users who have interacted with a content item may also be notified of other interactions with the same content item. However, users may not see interactions that would be of interest to them because the interactions of interest may be aggregated with other interactions or because the number of interactions with the content item is too large. In addition, a user may not see an interaction until long after the interaction occurred, thereby preventing the user from further interacting with the other user's interaction in a timely way.